Hold On
by Vintage Tea Party
Summary: Jo learned earlier on that Henry knew a thing or two about grief


**This is an AU look at what might have happened had Henry and Jo not been interrupted in the bar during the pilot. This is a friendship fic despite the way it seems at first :)**

Jo had never brought a man to _her_ house after a drink. But then again she had never met a man like Henry Morgan before.

He was no doubt strange. Anyone who met him would think that and anyone who had seen what he kept in his basement would know that for certain. But he was also mysterious. Though Jo knew he was hiding a secret of some kind, the mystery of him was still intriguing to her. It didn't feel like a dangerous secret; it felt like something that made her want to know more about him. He was also, she would begrudgingly admit, absolutely charming. She was not one to instantly go weak in the knees any time that a man might give her a certain look but she had to admit there was a small flutter in her chest when he had smiled at her and done that eye brow raise.

She had enjoyed working with him today even if it had gotten off on a bumpy start. She did not make a habit of working with former suspects but he had proven himself to be clever. He had solved the case when she had been unable to and she'd been impressed. His quick thinking had also saved her life. To sum it all up it had been one of strangest days of her life but that wasn't necessarily a bad thing.

But it wasn't all of his charms that had prompted her to ask him to come home with her after they were done at the bar. It was, instead, his words from earlier that still haunted her. _I just want it to go away. It won't._ She had brushed it off like it was a joke and hadn't bothered her but the truth was, that comment terrified her. Even now it still picked at her mind with worry. Most days it took everything she had in her just to get out of bed, go to work and make it through the day. A lot of the time the only thing that kept her going was believing that someday it all wouldn't hurt so much. She pushed through the pain because she hoped one day it would go away. But Henry had spoken a truth she had been afraid of for a long time; it never was going to go away. She'd always feared that it would never be gone but he had been the first to honestly confirm it for her.

She was intent on making those thoughts and the fear they invoked go away or at least making herself forget it for a while. Henry, among everything else, was also a gentleman, so she had half expected him turn down her offer to come home with her. But he had agreed even if he had said little else since then. He'd hardly said a word as they drove from the bar to her house and she glanced at him a few times to try and read what it was he was thinking but he was hard to read. It was almost like there was just too much about him, so much under the surface, that she just didn't know where to start.

His expression was so serious and she wondered what he was thinking. He'd given her some positive signs, enough to prompt her to invite him in the first place. But it was different than her normal encounters with men in bars. For a moment she had thought she had revealed too much back in the bar. She had been more honest than she meant to be and the way he had looked at her made her afraid he could see. It almost looked as if he could see her pain, that he knew how broken and full of sorrow she really was. She never even told men she was widow. Even just the title seemed to make men run for the hills; forget any expansion on her feelings on the matter. But Henry had directly asked her about Sean, something no one ever did so she'd allow herself to say a little more than she normally would have.

But when she had gone so far as to tell Henry exactly how it felt she was sure she'd turned him off. She'd been caught off guard by the question and once she had started talking it had just felt so good to be talking that she had gotten carried away. Had she really told Henry that she still felt a part of Sean with her? She couldn't believe she had actually said that. Even just remembering the extremely private statement made her cheeks blush.

Despite all of that, he had agreed and he was still here, walking into her home with her. It was now that she started to wonder if this was a mistake. She never brought men home with her and for good reason. If they didn't come to her house, they didn't know where she lived and they couldn't track her down again. She could leave anytime she wanted and she never worried about ever having to see them again. She hadn't really thought about what she was going to do with Henry when his was over. She was usually so careful but this time she hadn't even thought about it. Why hadn't she?

Henry was still quiet as they walked into her living room and took off their coats. She could tell he was deep in thought about something. His mind was focused on something else and was not here entirely. She didn't mind though. Silence wasn't a bad thing. Often times she preferred it that way. Sometimes, it helped her to forget; forget what she was doing, forget who she was really with. But the silence felt strange somehow here, in her house. She had never brought someone home with her because she feared it would be painful to have someone with her in the house that she had shared with Sean. She now knew she had been right; it was even harder than she had imagined.

When she sat down on the couch beside Henry he looked at her. He still hadn't said anything which puzzled her. Being quiet was one thing but she had never known a man to be this silent, especially when he had been so talkative earlier in the day. It really wasn't that she expected him to talk that much; they never really talked all that much after she'd left a bar with someone. But he wasn't making any moves either. He was really looking at her, studying her. She did not like being under such a serious stare. She was sure he was just trying to read her, to find out what she was thinking but didn't they both already know where this was headed? What was he waiting on?

If she were going to have to be the one to make the first move than she would. It wouldn't be the first time and she doubted it would be the last. She leaned in to kiss him but she was surprised when he put his hand up to her lips, stopping them from touching his. He let them linger there, stroking her lips gently with his thumb, back and forth a few times. She didn't really understand the gesture. Maybe he was trying to soften the blow of saying no. Maybe he was just trying to show her some affection, in another way. She wasn't really sure.

She'd never been rejected before. This wasn't rejection either. Not exactly. She wasn't sure what this was but it was something different than that. His movements conveyed something else besides just disinterest. She searched his eyes for some kind of clue and found only kindness there.

She was not to be deterred though. He still hadn't spoken and the silence was starting to infuriate her a little. This man was confusing. He seemed so full of things to say but he wasn't saying them. And she, despite her deductive skills, could not read him. With determination she grabbed him by the collar and shifted herself into his lap. She pulled him towards her and he put his hands on her face and she was sure that he was going to meet her. But he didn't pull her close to speed up the kiss; he pulled her close so that their foreheads were touching. His hands stayed on her face and his thumbs swept across her cheeks and gaze fell down into the space between them.

This was not rejection. She was sure of it now because of what she was realizing in her heart. He wasn't stopping her because this was something he didn't want; he was stopping her because this was something _she_ didn't want.

She hadn't fooled him at all. He'd seen it all. He'd seen the pain she was in. He could see she was mourning. She realized now how obvious it all must have been. She hadn't realized that she had practically been begging for help. Is that why he agreed to come with her?

She was glad she didn't have to look at him. She felt more exposed than she would if she actually was naked. She squirmed from intimacy of the moment, something she hadn't touched since Sean. No one had cared enough to make her stop. No one had seen what Henry obviously had. And certainly no one had tried to stop her from herself.

"Why are you doing this?" he asked quietly, the first words he spoken the whole time they'd been in her house.

She balked at the question. Who asked that? And, did there even need to be a reason? But it made her stop all the same. No one had made her stop and ask herself that. She now gripped on to his shirt as more of a lifeline, holing herself up rather than pulling him as she considered the answer. She knew why she had never stopped to ask herself why; searching for an answer hurt. She knew she would find something dark and painful at the root of it.

She didn't want this, any of this. She didn't want to be a young widow. She didn't want to face how lonely and sad she was. She didn't want to feel how broken her heart was. The point of turning to this particular distraction was always to avoid that, if only for a little while. That was what she had wanted from Henry and this night. She didn't want him to try and get her to face the very thing she was trying to forget. The problem was Henry knew who she really was, broken pieces and all. She wasn't just some girl he'd met in a bar without a painful back story; she couldn't pretend to be someone else. He already knew her much better than any of those other men ever had. He's known more about her than she'd wanted him to within five minutes of knowing her.

She was still searching for something to say when he spoke again. "This isn't what you want."

She finally looked up at him and was about to ask him how he could possibly know that. She was starting to get angry. Why had he agreed to come with her if he wasn't interested in her? Had he come just to pull out her pain? He had to have known what her intentions had been and this was the farthest thing from that. Was he just trying to torment her?

But before she could ask she realized she didn't need to. She could see it in his eyes; he understood. There was no judgment or contamination on his face like she had expected to find there. There was just a clear look of understanding. He'd been through this before. That's why he hadn't been scared off by her story back in the bar. The things she'd said she felt, he'd already felt them himself.

He said he was the least judgmental person because he'd made the same mistakes. She could see it written in his eyes. It wasn't sympathy she saw in his eyes as they looked back at her. She had been on the receiving end of that a frustrating amount of times. This was instead a deep empathy, so much she could almost feel it. She could see he saw part of himself in her, so much so it looked like it almost caused him pain to relate to her. He knew the pain of this coping mechanism, the futility of it all. He had felt the same regret that she felt.

Somebody _finally_ understood.

She'd never spoke with anyone who could understand what she was going through. There were only a few people who even attempted to try. But she'd had yet to meet a single person who actually knew the pain she felt every day.

"What do I do?" she finally asked, still looking down, away from him. Now that she knew someone who had been through this, someone who was ahead of her in the process, she desperately wanted the advice.

"Just hold on."

She felt the wave of grief coming on. It was too still, too quiet, in this moment between them. The focus was on the very pain she always ran away from. He meant for her to face it, to feel it. She always moved on, kept busy, to stay ahead of it but Henry was slowing her down and it was catching up to her. She tried to move away from him, desperate to move on and away, to do something to distract her. She slipped off of his lap but he grabbed her gently and shifted her in his arms, tucking her in close to his side and against his chest.

"Don't be afraid," he whispered, his voice so encouraging and kind.

One of his hands held her firm but gentle against the small of her back. With his other hand he stroked the hair at the side of her head, following the way her hair curled around her ear and down her neck. The rhythmic motion was gentle and so comforting it filled something inside of her that she needed. The gesture wasn't a precursor to something more; this was all it was and all it would be.

How could he know exactly what she needed? She hadn't even known she just needed to be held, that she had only needed to be listened to even when she wasn't speaking. Somehow he had figured it out before her because what he was giving her was what she'd been seeking all along.

She knew it was dangerous but she allowed herself to relax against him. She felt herself leaning in and him come in to hold even tighter. It was a risk because as her body relaxed so did her emotions. She felt herself becoming vulnerable, in all ways and that was something she never ever let herself do in the arms of a stranger. She didn't know why Henry Morgan was an exception to this rule but he was. It just felt so safe to be with someone who actually knew her, who actually understood the pain she was going through.

It was so much braver to let him hold her, to allow him to feel the way her heart hammered in her chest, not from heat but from the pain within. Letting him see her heart was much more intimate than it would have been to let him see her body. The intimacy of this was much more than she bargained for tonight. Getting this close to someone was so foreign to her. She didn't generally get close to very many people and it had been a long time since the last time she had. Her instincts told her to fight it but she willed herself to allow it this time.

"It's alright if you want to cry," he whispered. She bit her lip hard and tightened her grip on his shirt slightly. She was scared because she felt like she wanted to do that. She was breaking and crumbling inside. It had been a long time since she had faced her pain this much and it was hard to stay strong. But she fought it, trying to keep from losing it completely.

Just him telling her she could did something strange to her that she had not expected. No one had given her permission to express her grief yet. She didn't require anyone's permission but she now realized it was something she wanted. After Sean died, everyone told her it would be alright. She knew it was only their attempts to make her feel better but it didn't make her feel better at all. Of course it wouldn't be alright; it would _never_ be alright again. How could it be alright when Sean was dead? From the start it was as if they were saying it wasn't alright for her to feel how terrible things were.

She had under estimated the relief she felt in finding someone who acknowledged and accepted that grief. For months now she'd had to play an act around everyone. She'd had to pretend she was 'moving on' when she didn't feel like she was at all. At work she had to bury it deep. She had to prove she was one hundred percent put together; just showing at bit of the grief she felt would put into question her capability to do her job. And in her personal time she no longer wanted to acknowledge it. She found herself playing into the same lie she had to play all day. She would hide her ring in her pocket, though it felt like an act of betrayal, and she would go out and pretend she was anyone else other than a thirty something widow with a broken heart.

How was it that Henry was able to read her like a book? How was it possible for him to see the pain she was in within a couple of hours of knowing her when no one else around her had been able to see in months? Granted, she hadn't been all that good at concealing it from him. She still couldn't believe that she had even talked about Sean to this man she barely knew, let alone revealing so much about her feelings of grief. But he had asked and no one had in such a long time that she hadn't been able to stop herself. Even then, somehow, it had just felt safe to tell him. Now, that he held her, she knew she had been right. She felt safe with Henry. She was not someone who trusted easily at all but she already trusted Henry.

She wasn't sure how much longer she was going to remain strong. If this kept on for much longer she was going to start crying. Though she had only just met him, it felt really good for Henry to hold her. He felt experienced in the things of tragedy yet strong like she could lean on him, that she wasn't carrying all of this pain on her own. He saw what she was going through and right now he was willing to help it through some of it. He was kind, she could tell, and she felt protected. She hadn't felt anything close to that since she'd lost Sean. She was holding on to him but he was also holding on to her.

Did he really want to offer her more? Whatever this was, it wasn't just a one night stand, where they would part ways and never speak again. That was where she had thought this evening would go but it wasn't. She already felt they'd shared enough that that wouldn't be possible. She felt that maybe her association with Henry Morgan could go beyond this night. The way he was reaching out to her spoke of more than just a passing meeting. Maybe it was a chance at friendship. She had thought she'd not see him again after their brief association on this case but maybe their partnership didn't have to end.

But she didn't want that. Did she? She never wanted more. She had one night stands because they didn't last. There was a reason that she wasn't interested in taking any of those brief meetings any further than that. She never wanted to actually care about anyone anymore. She couldn't say she'd loved many people in her life and she'd never loved anyone as much as she had loved Sean. Losing him destroyed her and she vowed she would never let someone in again. But she found she did not regret where things had gone tonight and she would be sad if she never saw Henry again after this.

As the need to cry became more insistent she wondered if Henry would join her if she did cry. She had felt a very slight but real hesitation when he had pushed her away earlier. She also felt the way he held her now with understanding, trying to soothe the pain he knew she felt. What was his pain? What had he lost that made him so able to understand what she was going through? Was it the woman with the pocket watch, the one he had spoken of in the bar? Or was it something else, another pain he bore? She wondered how close he was to that grief. Surely, he was farther away from his than she was from hers based on what he had said earlier. But by the look in his eyes he was not far enough away from it that it didn't still haunt him.

It was almost a relief when her phone rang and broke the moment, keeping her from pushing off into a point of no return with her grieving. It was a relief but it was also a bit of a disappointment. She pulled herself awkwardly away from Henry, her cheeks blushing red when their eyes met for a second. He let her go and glanced away trying to give her some space as she took the phone out and answered it.

"They found more poison in Koehler's lab," she said turning to Henry after she had briefly spoke with Hanson on the phone.

She got up, putting her coat on and headed for the door. Henry, for the first time, looked a little unsure of himself as he followed her. "Shall I accompany you?" he asked.

Jo turned to face him and she found herself actually smiling at him. She was grateful for what Henry had done for her tonight. The emotional moment they'd just had might had been broken but it would never be forgotten. Henry may have gotten quite the look into her soul but she'd gotten a glimpse of his as well and she knew that Henry Morgan was someone she wanted by her side. "Of course."

The small hint of a smile on his face as he followed her told her he felt the same.

Maybe, Henry had been right when he said that the pain of it would never go away. She had been afraid, for so long she had been terrified, that the piece of Sean she carried around with her would never go away. Henry obviously knew something about grief so she knew it must be true when he said she'd never be rid of it. But for the first time she realized that maybe that didn't have to be a bad thing. Just because it didn't go away, didn't mean that it wouldn't get easier to carry. Henry had made it just a little easier tonight and as she thought about the future she felt something she hadn't felt since she'd lost Sean. She was just a little hopeful.


End file.
